The Madison Seminary was built in 1847, and first served as a high school and college. These original structures still stand, and are known as the Civil War side of the building. In 1859, a brick structure was added, providing a boarding hall for about 150 students. This addition was due to a rising amount of students over the years. The building served needs of students from 1847 until July of 1891, when the building was first left and quickly bought by Madison Township. Lake County administrator Kenneth Gautner had wanted to demolish the structure at this time, as it did not meet many codes. Thankfully, not long after the county took ownership, the building was sold on November 10, 1891 and had become the Madison home, purchased and owned by Ohio Women’s Relief Corps.

In 1904, the WRC had donated the building to the state, hoping for it to be taken over rather than left to rot. The building sat vacant for some years, until June 30, 1962 when it was taken over by the Ohio Department of Mental Hygiene and Corrections. During the 1960s, it was renamed as Opportunity Village. The structure was then used to house select honor inmates from the women’s reformatory in Marysville. These inmates would work here as staff. The building also had functioned as an extension of Apple Creek State Hospital to house disabled women, and later had joined with the Ohio Bureau of Vocational Rehab.

In 1964, they would merge with Cleveland State Hospital, and had become an extension of that as well. Opportunity village closed for good in 1975, and the building would come to serve numerous purposes thereafter. It has been said that when the police took over the property during the 1980s, that all furniture and various decorations were burned in a large bonfire behind the building. The building remained in use by police until the early 1990s, when a newspaper ad went up reading “for rent, historic building, can be leased cheap. Caution; building may be haunted.”

The seminary holds some other interesting history, including the death of Elizabeth Stiles, who died within the building. Stiles had become a Civil War spy for the union after her husband was killed in cold blood by Confederate sympathizers. Stiles died on July 18, 1898, aged 82 years old.

The structure was purchased in 2016 by Adam Kimmell, who has been working to make the building a time capsule, doing what is necessary to preserve its life and stories. As of 2019, tours, private ghost hunts and public ghost hunts are available. These tours are managed by Ady Gaddis.

The Madison Seminary is one of the most interesting places (in my opinion) in Northeast Ohio to visit, and one of the handful in the state that can be legally visited.

You can check out a short video I made featuring current owner Adam Kimmell talking about the building’s history:

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